backups feature question

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IC3 Networks

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Mar 28, 2010
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i am concerned about how the panel does the backup process.

for example, is it safe to do a backup without suspending the user first ?

i have a server administrator who told me that i need to suspend the user first,because doing a backup from an up and running database with many connections might result in a broken backed up database.

tbh it's kind of pain to suspend the site every time i want to take a backup, so is that really needed or directadmin does some kind of magic work and i should rest my mind regarding this point ?
 
i was thinking today about this, and i think it's really needed to suspend first.
for example what if i am hosting a file sharing website like rapidshare.
if a user "x" is uploading a file while me taking the backup, this might result in an incomplete backup state and probably corrupted uploaded file in the backup.
not sure if there is something i missed or can't imagine.
however, i think there should be a feature ( a check box for example ) in admin backup ( with cron ) and user backup features, to suspend the user during backups based on the administrator needs or the site owner needs.
 
but that will cause a little downtime to the domain, i mean, if the account is huge one, the suspend will take the total backup time and should be a lot of time...ofc should be a nice implementation but not sure if should be so useful to you... maybe a backup during the night when the traffic is not high is better, and a script with a page that say "the site is unavabile atm for updates" should be nice for dont have traffic/uploads during that period... well, this seems like the susped but, will not show "user has been suspended" and your email will keep working :)
 
that's exactly what i was thinking about, a custom suspend-during-backups page and the rest of the feature as mentioned above.
i guess it's really needed for sites with many connections.
i run remote ftp cron backups at 5 AM every day, it wont hurt me much to have the site down for 20 minutes during the backup.
i even started today in doing it using php and cron commands, but it's a nice feature to have with directadmin GUI.

edit//just finished the cron/php/mysql script to suspend my sites with custom messages based on my needs.
i still see this feature is very important to implement in future in directadmin.
 
Last edited:
I would rather have the possibility of a few corrupt files than site downtime. If you suspend the site while the upload is in progress what then? You still have a corrupt file.

Mysql will not get corrupted.
 
I'm with Floyd on this one. Make your regularly scheduled backups. Make sure your clients know that you're not responsible for the loss of any content they upload to the site. Make sure you know to keep copies of anything you upload to the site.

Suspending a site during backup requires at the very least a custom suspension page such as "We're down for backups". Since most people who use most sites will never see such a message they'll wonder what you're doing wrong. And most of them won't come back.

Suspension during backups can play havoc with your uptime. For example, if you do a daily backup on a site that takes 45 minutes to back up, you can never have more than 96.875% availability.

Jeff
 
thanks for your reply, it's really interesting reply.
but i still have a question, can a broken mysql connection make the backup unrestorable ?
 
IC3 Networks said:
can a broken mysql connection make the backup unrestorable ?
Click to expand...

Possibly. But the backup is not going to break a mysql connection since it uses mysqldump to do it instead of just tar'ing up the database.

i have a server administrator who told me that i need to suspend the user first,because doing a backup from an up and running database with many connections might result in a broken backed up database.
Click to expand...

Incorrect. If that were the case then then many connections trying to write to the same table would cause a corrupt database. The mysql writers are a lot smarter than he is.
 
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